Californians Against the Taxpayer Trap

Californians Against the Taxpayer Trap

Not that anyone ever wants to hear about more horrible ballot initiatives, but passage of Prop 90 which is on CA's ballot in November would be a horrible tragedy. I'm sort of surprised that it's been getting such little coverage considering its potential impact. Basically, it's part of the libertarian effort to eliminate the right of government to regulate land use.

The bottom line:
"Prop. 90 authorizes lawsuits for any government action that someone claims will result in economic loss to property – no matter how unreasonable that claim."

No on 90 uses this example to illustrate:
"If voters act to limit the size of a development for environmental concerns to 100 houses, and the developer claims the property could hold 200 houses, this initiative allows the developer to sue to force taxpayers to pay his company the value for the 100 houses he wasn’t allowed to build. Taxpayers would be on the hook for the value of the property at the denser level, even though the community could not handle or did not want such a development."

I think this is a pretty minor example compared to what could take place... Check out the website to see what's going on. And if you're not a CA resident, you're not off the hook. The money is fueling measures all over the West. The Chron has an article here giving some context as well as some examples of eminent domain abuse.

Also, an article by Alyssa Katz in the American Prospect that I think captures the politics of eminent domain well from a progressive and politcally savvy viewpoint. She calls eminent domain the "partial-birth abortion of property rights -- a practice so evidently heinous that people who might otherwise not be sympathetic to the cause are drawn in."